Jewish Folkways in Germanic Lands is a fascinating study of customs and everyday life of the people in German-Jewish communities in Europe between 1648 and 1806. The period was a crucial one for the Jewish people, since it followed the tragic Thirty Years' War and the Chmielnicki pogroms which forced them to leave their homes, migrate to new lands, and reconstruct their lives. In an attempt to create a picture of what life must have been like during this period, Dr. Pollack has examined the experiences of individuals anonymous in history, studying their practices and folkways in relation to the home, the cycle of birth, marriage, and death, education and intellectual development, folk medicine, and religious observances. Wherever possible, the origin and background of customs have been explored. Some were local in character, while others were widely diffused and observed differently in various regions. Some were local in character, while others were widely diffused and observed differently in various regions. Some customs could be traced to ancient times, and the interpretations ascribed to the significance of a specific custom during the intervening years have been presented. The influences that the outside world had on the development of the customs in the Jewish
gas (neighborhood) are an integral part of this work.
The customs, or minhagim, practiced by the Jewish people may be divided into three general but overlapping classifications: ritual minhagim, such as those associated with birth, marriage, and burial; dietary minhagim, related to foods and table usage; and extralegal minhagim, practices that dealt with remedies and problems of hygiene and were relied upon to overpower demons.
Customs and folkways often expressed the harshness of daily life with courage, humor, or irony. For example, it was the practice at the marriage ceremony for the groom to wear a mourner's hood, thereby recognizing the element of sorrow in life even in the midst of great happiness. Also apparent was the musar (religio-ethical) tone of the teachers who strove to eliminate abusive practices. Other customs reflected ways of dealing with the laws of nature, with inexplicable events such as sickness and death, caused, many believed, by evil spirits.
Sources for the book included collections of customs, ethical treatises, ethical wills, homilies, popularized codes of law, response, communal legislation, minute books, memor-books, and autobiographies. Pollack's study should contribute greatly to an understanding of the structure and outlook of Jewish social and communal life in Germanic lands prior to the era of Jewish emancipation; it is an example of how a historical approach can help man to know himself and his heritage. Ample references document the text and provide scholarly source material for further study.
Herman Pollack was a rabbi and the first full time Director of the MIT Hillel office.
